<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>and you are my center when i spin away by midsommur</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27334477">and you are my center when i spin away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/midsommur/pseuds/midsommur'>midsommur</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Batman (Movie 2021)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, orig posted on my tumblr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:39:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27334477</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/midsommur/pseuds/midsommur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She felt like asking was presumptuous; like she was maybe crossing a line.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Batman/Reader, Bruce Wayne/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and you are my center when i spin away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="">
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>She felt like <em>asking</em> was presumptuous; like she was maybe crossing a line. Maybe somethings were meant to be sacred, and maybe this was one of those things. Truth be told, she had been meaning to ask Bruce for months, ever since it became clear that the Batman was going to become a regular occurrence, a staple in the both of their lives.</p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And that’s all it was—curiosity. Because Bruce was more than enough. He fucked her anyway she wanted, anyway she asked; whether it be soft and sweet, with gentle touches and the sweetest words, or rough, with assertive fervor. It’s why she feels like she can ask this of him, this small request.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She just couldn’t get the words out. It was just embarrassing, in her own head, at least. The very thought of asking him, for him to in turn deny her made her want to crawl out of her own skin and melt into the floorboards. Despite her desperation for it—for him to fuck her as the Batman, not as Bruce Wayne—she realized, in her wake of loneliness, that she couldn’t ask him. Insane for even thinking it; what type of person would she be, to take his livelihood, his symbol (and the whole city’s, for that matter) for hope and restoration and positive <em>good</em>, and turn it into some deluded fantasy?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s out of the question. It stays mental.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But then...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The stars just seem to align.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Bruce comes home terribly frustrated, so much so that he can’t even stand to see anybody, can’t stand to see Alfred, can’t even stand to see <em>her</em>, out of fear of lashing out. He knew, even in his clouded fit of anger, that she didn’t deserve his ill temper. And though she’s well aware of the wrath he wields within himself, it’s never been directed at her, at least not to that extreme.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So, he purposefully avoids her to prevent a fight. To prevent anything he thinks he might regret.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It goes without saying that Bruce Wayne is terribly depraved. Almost as if he was stunted, emotionally, never knowing how to get a handle on these intense bursts of emotions, these strong feelings building in his mind, coursing in his veins and down into his marrow that he thought he might just fucking burst at the seams with discontent.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He wants to hurt. To hurt somebody, to hurt himself (though he stopped doing that a long time ago). He wants to maim, he wants to injure, he wants to get it all out, somewhere, anywhere. He wants to scream, he wants to shed his skin and leave his body, damaged and bruised and scarred and beaten. He wants to admit defeat and fall over and fucking die, because he can’t do this, he can’t keep this up.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s just so fucking angry that he wants to cry.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But he can’t cry. He can’t do that.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So he keeps it in.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>**</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His presence is dark.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She sits up as he enters their bedroom, his demeanor stoic and cold. He doesn’t greet her, doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. It’s nearing morning, now, around five or so, and unless he’d been sulking in the cave instead of coming to her as soon as he’d returned from his night as he usually does, there’d be no other reason for him to still be dressed in his suit.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And she would be cross—normally. Because how fucking dare he, who does he think he is, what does he think he’s doing; except she <em>knows</em> who this is. She knows his anger and she knows his joy, knows his sadness and the heartache in his blood. She knows him down to inner and most essential parts. And she knows there is something wrong.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>As if she were a mouse, braving the den of the lion, she creeps out of bed. Follows him into the bathroom, where he’s bent over the sink, and all she can see is a black mass of leather and kevlar, an amalgamation of mistakes that had been rebuilt and improved upon.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>What they say, about one’s energy, is true. She feels it radiating off of him, the negativity—it almost stops her from approaching him entirely.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But she’s a foolish girl, and does so anyway. Goes and pokes the bull to see all the trouble she could get herself into.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her palm is warm against the cold metal of his armor, not that he could even feel it. She almost flinches from the stinging chill of it, but doesn’t. Instead, she presses harder, forces her presence and makes it known.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Though turned away from her, she can still see his expression in the reflection of the mirror. His eyes are scrunched shut, making it look as if his eyes were two massive black holes at the top of his face. The lower half of his face is dark, too, as it usually gets when he doesn’t shave after a while, and the line of his mouth is seemingly etched into a permanent scowl.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She wonders if he knows he’s home. That there’s no one to scare, no one to strike fear into the heart of. He couldn’t scare her, and he had no reason to.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But she could read his expression, and this one she knows. Knows it very well, like a map she’s drawn a thousand times into the back of her hand. She knows he wants to cry. She knows he has something burning in his chest and in his ligaments, coursing through him, and he doesn’t know where to put it, where to let it go. How to get it out.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When she touches his back, she realizes that he’s shaking.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Bruce,” she mumbles, moving closer, braving the treacherous shoreline. Despite having handled him in scenarios like this before, she knows it’s usually always different in some way or another, though it never gets easier. Seeing him like this, so clearly distraught and in an insurmountable amount of pain, internal and bottled up the way he preferred it be kept, was always difficult. It’s why when she opens her mouth to speak, no words fall out, like a dried up well. She’s stammering some nonsense when he pushes his weight off the counter, turning to face her with a gut-wrenching glare.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Could you leave me alone? Do you think you could you manage that?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His words hit her just as he’d meant for them to—sharp and harsh and cold. She recoils in shock at his venomous tone. And she’s angry, digging her nails into her palms and clenching her fists and then…</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She blinks. And she bites her bottom lip, like she’s muting herself as she considers her next move, debates what his next one could possibly be. Because as of now, he’s making his exit from the bathroom and leaving her, his cape billowing behind him.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The suit itself acts like a physical manifestation of all the walls he’d built up to guard himself with. And though she’d made a home for herself within them, there were times, times like these, where she’d been forcibly exiled without intention. It leaves her stupefied—genuinely unsure of how to ground him and get his head level again, the armor he’s adorned himself with making him all the more intimidating to approach.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But it’s <em>Bruce</em>. She’s granted with the knowledge no other person might ever come to know, no other criminal on the street, no socialite he’d rub elbows with—she was different. She knew the secret—the breakable man under the unbreakable mask. She was his and he was hers, even when he thinks he doesn’t want her, even when he didn’t think he deserved her. This was the one, true, indisputable fact that pushes her forward, that gives her the courage to advance towards him again.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Stay,” she asks him, suddenly feeling very small. Like this simple request was comparable to asking him for the world. “I just want to help you.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s very quick, then. His movements, spinning around to face her, glower down at her. He paces up to her again, looking down at her like he has any means to intimidate her. Something of a predacious animal.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s silent. Provoking her to speak.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She stands still. It’s all she can do; stand and look up at him, the soulless cowl and the darkened eyes—The Batman.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Please?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He wouldn’t normally do this.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s in the way she says it, the expression that she says it with. She had said it, the simple word, so nicely; jutted out her bottom lip and scrunched her eyebrows, maybe even willed her eyes to water a bit as she rose her voice an octave and whispered it again,<em> “Please?”</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And he <em>loves</em> her. In all this rage, this anger and fury, he still knew that much was true. And he would do anything for her, anything she asked.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And because there’s some part of him that knows he’d like this, too. Maybe some subconscious part of him that knows how much he needs this.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>To let it out.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He takes her in his hands underneath her arms and gets her on the bed, handling her with a little less-than care. Stunned by the quickened pace, she manages to ask him, “What are you doing?” Yet, as she attempts to sit herself up on her elbows, she’s met with thick, gloved hands holding her down, pinning her wrists above her head.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Can you shut up?” he hisses, pupils blown out nearly black. “Do you <em>ever</em>stop talking?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She decides to be quiet now, as he assaults her throat with his teeth and tongue. His marks burn and bruise her skin, yet still she finds herself exposing her neck to him even more, as if presenting him with all the more skin to abuse.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Oh, I get it,” he taunts with a bitter grin. “You want to do the opposite of what I tell you. I tell you to leave me alone, and you follow. Then I ask a question, and you’re quiet.” His tongue traces the line of her neck and down her collarbones, sending her into a downward spiral of desperation for more of anything he’d give her. “Will you be a big girl and fucking pick one or the other? Are you gonna be bad, or are you gonna behave?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She feels her throat closing up, body betraying her as she juts out her chin and finds an answer. “Yes,” is all she can manage.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes, what?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes,” she whines, hips bucking up uncontrollably as a bitter tear leaking down her cheek, “Yes, I’ll behave.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He pulls back, away from her throat and the mess he’d made of it, and pulls the satin slip up off of her body, making some off-handed comment about how she couldn’t do it herself, and how she needed him to do everything for her. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment, humiliation, yet even still she finds herself aching for his bruising touch, for more shame and degradation, just as long as the sharp, vicious words were coming from his mouth.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Bruce comes back down to taste her lips, his hands trailing back up her neck to squeeze as his teeth scrape against her own, pressing his fingers into her sensitive throat, hard enough until ten tiny bruises are certain to form. When he pulls away, after a stifled cough escapes her, he has a command prepared.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Open,” he tells her, and a small, pathetic part of her wants to fight him, disobey him, so she doesn’t. Her lips pucker shut and she sticks out her chin in retaliation. In turn, he holds her jaw in one hand, thumb digging into the hollow of her cheek as he uses his other hand to slap the side of her face, palm raised flat against her skin, leaving a faint yet distinct mark on her skin. Her mouth falls open, helplessly, allowing him access to do what he’d intended. As he spits on her tongue, he rubs her reddened cheek as soothingly as he can manage, watching as she impotently swallows what he’d given her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It makes him grin—sadistic and satisfied.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Good,” he praises, tugging off his cowl, haphazardly discarding it, just before moving back to position her legs around his waist, angling their bodies like two compatible pieces, manhandling her like a featherweight doll. The coalescence of it all, all the bitter treatment and the gentle praise he tried to mask (because he just couldn’t help it), the way he fell into his role with such ease like it was made for him, like it was always him all along. It was something beautiful, to experience, to see the stress and the ache and the pain leaving him, not destroyed but transferred and transformed into <em>this</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She grasps for him, his back, his neck, anywhere she can reach, as he envelopes her in his arms, wrapping them tight around her back as he pushes himself into her. Even like this, with his force and his intensity, he’d still make it good for her. When he pushes in he’s slow, mesmerized by the way her head falls back against the pillows and her mouth parts in pleasure. And he stays slow, stays that way until she’s arching her back and asking for him to move, to please, <em>god</em>, give her more.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You want more?” he asks her, kissing away the tears from under her eyes as he snakes a hand out from around her back and up to her throat again, pressing against her throat until her eyes brim with more tears that threaten to spill. And still, she nods, whimpering, the sound reverberating against his hand, and because she’s been <em>so</em>good for him, he generously obliges. Arms braced on either side of her head, barricading her within him like a caged animal, he’s able to thrust into her with a tenacity he hadn’t had before, this incredible, unyielding speed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And the sounds are obscene, guttural, as her nails scratch his skin, as he takes her further and further, legs hitched high up around his waist. But it’s not enough—it almost feels like it never is, never could be. Not when she’s tugging him closer, pulling him deeper into her core.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But he’s quick to prevent her from reaching what she desired, at least not so soon. His fingers come up to scrape her scalp, petting her in such a subtly cruel way, all while coming down against her, pressing his abdomen to hers. He encases her this way, so that his thrusts are slow yet brutal all the same, pounding into her with barbarous strength.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It makes her whine, this croaking, broken sound. And Bruce knows that it’s mean, to prolong her from coming, but there was something in the way that she was crying for it, begging for the one thing that only he could give to her. Her pleas are a garbled, suffocating noise that work well enough to make him take pity on her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Oh, baby,” he coos casually, “Want it that bad, huh?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She sobs an anguished <em>yes</em>, desperate to have him move in her again, ease the building tension within her. He pulls back to admire her writhing body, shaking with anticipation as he burrows a hand between her shaking thighs. At this point, he’s figured she’s earned this much, having been so compliant and obedient for him, after all. His fingers feel like a soothing reprieve, like a fucking divine finality.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He sits back again, his free hand flat against her stomach as he starts to move again in thicker, broader strokes. Her back arches at the combined pressure of both his fingers on her clit and his cock, large and filling, stretching her walls and driving further, deeper inside. The burning ache, low in the pit of his stomach, climbs and climbs and mounts until he’s faltering. Breathless, almost choked, he comes inside of her, stuffing her full.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And the beautiful thing about it—about when she comes—is that she’s <em>thanking</em> him, thanking him when he didn’t even instruct her to. It’s like she knew, already, what he wanted to hear, some synchronized stream of consciousness, connectedness between the two of them. She knew what he needed just as much as he knew what to give her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He rides her through it, the coursing waves of pleasure, the heavy beating of her chest, the glistening sweat on the highpoints of her bones. He pumps his fingers in and out of her all gentle and soft, merciful, as his lips press against her forehead, murmuring endless, excessive adulations. Making up for his ruthless sadism.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Still reeling from the headiness, her eyes blearily blink up to him, his lips and scratchy stubble against her temple. It’s grounding, centering.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Hi,” she mumbles, moving in closer against him, still feeling the undying need to feel impossibly close to him and his radiating warmth. It’s a soft, sentimental contrast to the events transpired just minutes ago, and it’s in that moment, Bruce thinks, that there is something very wrong with himself.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He glances down to his hands, now wound tightly around her body, holding her fast and close to him, and realizes that they’re shaking now, <em>again</em>. He can only hold her tighter and pray that it stops, that it’ll end. He’s repulsed, disgusted at his impulse and what came over him. And he’s very aware of it all now, the tightness of his suit, the constricting, confining nature of it, suffocating him. He can’t breathe, <em>again</em>, he doesn’t know what to do, <em>again</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>At the resounding silence he’s given her as a response, she looks up to see the reason, maybe he had fallen asleep.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But no—he’s wide awake. His eyes are wide and blown out and <em>shocked</em>. Then, she notices the trembling hands gripping her skin, and it begins to make sense.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Bruce,” she calls him, pleading for his attention. He turns his head to meet her gaze, and his eyes are <em>terrified, </em>for a brief moment, before they’re masked again with a blank, empty gape, in a last minute attempt to fake a façade, act like everything was okay.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And she recognizes it, the flicker in his eyes as he looks beyond her even though he’s staring right at her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She touches his face, his scratchy cheek, and his lip quivers.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Honey,” she urges, pads of her thumbs pressing against the black paint under his eyes. It’s smearing now, a result of sweat and tears that have at long last fallen. “Baby, what’s wrong?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His throat bobs, the urge to vomit abruptly imminent. He was sick—<em>disgusted</em> with himself, what he’d done. He lurches out of bed, unintentionally dragging her up with him, her grasp on his body never faltering.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Bruce,” she says, desperate. “Please, I—”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I’m sorry,” he sobs, collapsing into her open arms. She draws him close to her, his head pressed tightly to her chest as his body shakes. He hates himself, for what he did, what he’s doing, what he’s done—she deserved none of this, and yet here she was dealing with all of it. All his doing, all his fault.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She should throw him off of her, this wretched being. He didn’t deserve her tender arms or soothing words, the soft kisses she was pressing to his forehead or the fingers she was tangling in his hair. He hated the guilt, but most of all he despised how he always let it accidentally become her problem, whether he kept in it or let it out. She’d have to deal with his mess and the aftermath that came with it no matter how he dealt with it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And he hated acting like this in front of her. Weak and incapable. He recovers himself as quickly as he can, pulling away from her warmth and comfort to drag a hand over his face, dispose the tears he’d shed, like they were never there. “I’m sorry,” he says again, not able to meet her eyes. “That was—that wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have done that, you have no idea how—"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Bruce,” she interrupts him, her smile weak yet genuine. “I can’t take you seriously. You look like a raccoon.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He falters, the sight of her contended face puzzling to him. As if he hadn’t just lost absolute control on her, relinquishing any and all inhibitions he’d previously had, any filters or restraints he’d enforced in his head and kept to himself.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He takes her face into his hands, now, as if he were inspecting her with great detail. Like there was something not quite right about her reaction to what has happened.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She should be flinching away from him, moving out of his hands, but instead, she <em>giggles</em>, of all things, and holds his hands in place. She tilts her head to the side inquisitively, inciting him to speak.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You…” he trails off slowly, “You’re okay?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Nodding, she responds with a resound <em>yes</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Not yet convinced, he furrows a brow and attempts another question. “You <em>liked</em> it?” he tries to clarify, only to instead get ridiculed by her begrudging laughter.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“<em>Yes</em>,” she says, enunciating the single word as if it isn’t clear enough. “Didn’t you?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Bruce pulls his lips into a straight line, not wanting to answer, not knowing the right one. “I—well, I <em>shouldn’t</em> have, but—”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“No,” she shakes her head, “You can like it. It’s okay to have liked it.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Is it?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Though he’s made a name for himself as <em>the world’s greatest detective</em>, he still learns much every day. These revelations, though sometimes startling, are very useful. The details don’t matter—what does, is that he loves her, and he’s so grateful for her, and all the endless ways she helps him. Shows him that things aren’t so obsolete, that he doesn’t have to store his sorrows away and let them collect until they erupt. There were easier ways to cope, different, alternative methods and ways.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Ways that they could do it together.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>